The List: 23 Nov 1990 (Issue 136)

Blue Steel (18) (Kathryn Bigelow, US,1989) Jamie Lee Curtis, Hon Silver, Clancy Brown, Elizabeth Pena. 106 mins. Rookie cop, Jamie Lee Curtis, appears to have missed the point as she steps out of her graduating parade. Hersassy saunterand vulnerable grin bear more resemblance to a video for ‘I Love a Girl in Unitorm' than one ol New York's linest, about to risk lite and limb in delence olthe law.

The hood holding up a supermarket on Curtis’ first night on the beat also misses the point. Too bad he didn’t put that .44 Magnum down, or he might not have got six in the chest before shattering, in beautiful slow motion, through a six by four sheet of plate

BLUE STEEL

glass to splatter onto the sidewalk. Hon Silver, the yuppie lying terrified on the supermarket floor gets the point though. He sees Curtis discharge all chambers of her pistol into the perpetrator's tumbling torso without batting an eye, watches the perpetrator’s gun, land gleaming blue steel in front or his lace, and disappears into the night with the weapon, deadly, waiting to make a kill. Curtis is not privy to all this detail though. She is in it up to her neck: one dead suspect, no gun, no one to verify he ever had one, she is suspended trom duty and no elligible man wants to get into bed with a cop. So when Silver appears, to wine her and dine her as respite from his misanthropic day job, she does not recognise him, little realising that he is the killerterrorising the town and leaving bullet cases with her name on by the side or his victims. Bigelow has created a thrilling, dark, labyrinth for Curtis and Silver to stumble through. Equally lost. Both predator. Both prey. Both victims of their weapons and the violence surrounding them. Many directors have made violence beautiful and glossy, but rarely has it been to such effect. Bad and good are obvious from the moment Silver rolls his eyes while practising his shots in the mirror, and Curtis displays her superb teeth. The point, kept periectly in suspense throughout this powertul movie, is whether the protectors of the peace are just in it torthe killing. (Thom Dibdin)

operatic tale. in which two men are bewitched and destroyed by a dangerously sensual gypsy woman. Edinburgh: National Museum Of Scotland. I Charlotte's Web (L') (Charles A. Nichols. US. 1972) Voices of[)ebbie Reynolds. Henry Gibson. 85 mins. Animated version of the [3.8. White classic in which a farmyard spider befriends a shy piglet. Not badly done by the l lanna-Barbera studio. Edinburgh: Filmhouse. I A City of Sadness ( 15) (llou Hsaio-l lsien. Taiwan. 1989) Tony Leung. Hsin Shu-Fen. Chen Sown Yung. 158 mins. Despite the events atTiananmen Square. Chinese born director Hou still works from the relative safety ofTaiwan. His touching portrayal of the island‘s post War iii-Slur)“ broadly depicts the livesof four brothers battling to retain their integrity as organised crime moves from the Chinese mainland to inﬂuence the local community. Hou's vision isa genuinely poetic deliberation of a people and their land. Edinburgh University Film Society. I The Comedy 0! Woody Allen ( 15)The (iFTs Education Officer Paula Visocchi introduces a review of Allen's best work. illustrated with excerpts from films including Annie Hall. Radio Days and his latest. Crimes A Md .‘llrlwlemeanors. (Festival ()flewish Culture) Glasgow:

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I The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover ( 18) (Peter Greenaway. UK. 1989) Richard Bohringer. Michael Gambon. Helen Mirren. Alan Howard. Tim Roth. 1le mins. Greenaway has made a film guaranteed to offend everybody. Though beautifully art-directed. photographed. produced and acted. it deals with the kind of subject matter normally only found under the counter at video nasty stores. Compulsive and unforgettable but you'd be hard pressed to like the thing. Edinburgh: Cameo.

I Dangerous Liaisons ( 15) (Stephen Frears. US. 1988) Glenn Close. John Malkovich. Michelle Pfeiffer. Keanu Reeves. 120 mins. Madame de Tourvel and the Vicomte de Valmont (Close and Malkovieh) are treacherous 18th century aristocrats weaving a web oferotic duplicity around one another. Frears makes a notable Hollywood debut. guiding his east through a difficult set of narrative pirouettes. Yet for all the